she bore up cheerfully enough on campaign.”
Horace slurped his coffee, a habit that increasingly grated on Meli’s nerves. Horace had always slurped his coffee and his tea, but since settling into London life, that singularly ungenteel noise struck Meli as proof of his increasing years.
“Who else will be there?” he asked, perusing his newspaper.
Melisande rattled off a guest list rife with military acquaintances, a few bachelors to make up the numbers, and the usual sprinkling of wallflowers to swell the audience ranks.
“I suppose we must show the colors,” Horace said, taking another slurp. “Truly, my dear, I do not fathom how your niece can prefer the drudgery of a cook’s life to genteel entertainments and your own company. Ann isn’t bad looking, and she has some means. She would make you a perfect companion. Is there some reason she disdains to join our household?”
“Stubbornness, I suppose.” Though Meli almost—almost—understood the allure of having a skill for which a woman would be paid a decent wage. If that woman was unmarried and of age, she also had the legal standing to keep her wages for her own use.
No hoping her husband had instructed the solicitors on the matter of her monthly pin money. No economizing on candles to replace a pair of slippers that had become unfashionable in a single Season.
Still, to work all day, dealing with animal carcasses, coarse company, and manual labor… That was much too high a price to pay for a loss of standing in genteel society.
“You can be stubborn too,” Horace said, “and I must tell you honestly, Melisande, I do not care for any association between my family and Orion Goddard. I stood by him through all the rumors and even the official inquiry, but that there was an inquiry was most unfortunate.”
The military was always convening boards of inquiry. As best Meli recalled, Horace himself had requested that Goddard’s situation be investigated, claiming that was the only way to clear the colonel’s name.
Goddard had been knighted, suggesting somebody had been convinced of his worth. To observe as much would doubtless send Horace off onto one of his diatribes about military justice, appearances, the honor of the regiment, and necessary compromises for the greater good. As a younger wife, Meli had heard that speech more often than any other in Horace’s substantial repertoire.
“I can hardly persuade Ann to give up her cooking if she’s no longer permitted to call on me, sir.”
Horace set down his coffee cup and folded his paper up. It never occurred to him that when he marched off to his club every morning, he might leave the Society pages for his wife to read. Meli was reduced to paying for a second subscription that was sent to her sitting room at noon, after the maids had had a chance to iron the pages.
That precaution was necessary, because Horace would notice ink-stained fingers and doubtless inquire as to how Meli had acquired them.
“Ann is family,” Horace said. “We would never turn her away, but neither should you ignore the risks she runs to her good name and to your own by association. You might remind her that Goddard is not well regarded among his fellow officers, and perhaps she will choose her next apprentice with more care.”
Actually, Orion Goddard had been well liked by his peers and respected by his subordinates. He’d been mentioned in the occasional dispatch—a high honor—and there was that knighthood.
“I don’t think Ann had any choice about taking the girl on,” Meli said. “Goddard is Sycamore Dorning’s brother by marriage, and the Dornings are notoriously loyal to family. If Dorning told Ann to take on an apprentice, Ann could not have refused that direct order.” Then too, the Dornings boasted an earldom among the family treasures, and Sycamore Dorning’s wife was the widow of a marquess.
That Horace, who well knew the value of influence and social standing, would eschew Goddard’s company when the colonel could claim such connections was a puzzle.
And a worry.
Horace rose and tucked the newspaper under his arm. “Enough about Ann and her misguided notions. I’m off to hear all the news at the club, my dear.” He came down to Meli’s end of the table and bussed her cheek. “What have you planned for today?”
“I must begin the preparations for our officers’ dinner in earnest. Choose the flowers, inventory the linen, ensure the Portuguese silver is polished. The staff looks forward to those dinners, as do I.”
She didn’t, actually—the same stories, the same jokes,